Five tense minutes of dodging through the ravine, past the winding rocks while the number of men trail behind them thin.

She doesn’t let them feel the pain of their death, because it’s too swift for their brains to register as she picks off more and more of them. Her husband flees down past the brush and past rough-hewn rock, and a wild stream that has built up with the incessant rain. The last of the mercs is nothing but a dying mass of spilled intestines and feeble clawing to hold his innards in. A stab through the heart with Luminari ends him.

The last four had come at her all at once. Searing beams, acidic rays, and shadowy strikes from infernal weapons did as much damage to their wielder as they did to their victim. This was the last one to die, and she realizes after a rough count that’s almost all of them.

Fifty-nine men, including the several that Eddard had put bullets into. He might not be a powerful mage, but a nine-millimeter barrier-piercing ammo is still enough to end other mages. Though she probably can't count instances of unfriendly fire.

She grimaces against the motion of pulling the blade out of that still-warm corpse of man. Even in her human form, the radiating pain of the damaged wing still bleeds through, and she staggers through the rocky terrain, nearly slipping on the slick rocks and the rushing water. Eddard peers out from behind cover, and grabs her once he’s certain it’s clear.

"Trish...they're all..." He can't finish his sentence, and his breath is labored. The sight of so many corpses has made him numb to that awful, awful feeling of seeing dead Kin. "Who are these people?"

"I think they're Ravager Company." Trisha leans on the cliff face, panting, and bleeding from the injuries sustained. Her regeneration is in overdrive, but it is taking too long to heal the worst of it. She hands her last Regen potion to Edward, suffering a severe cut on his torso, and he groans as the injury seals. But they don't have the luxury of time–the fact that more mercs showed up really showed just how badly they wanted this information. "We need to keep moving."

“Trish. Run. Leave me, I’m slowing you down–”

“Over my dead body,” she snarled, and got them over a rocky outcropping. They just needed to buy time. She hasn't been pushed to her limits like this in a while, and Luminari is ringing like an alarm bell. An imminent threat is getting close.

A sound of a thruster gets her attention, and something drops down from the impassable cliff face. She narrows her eyes at the mechanized suit of silver and gold plating and lands in a crouch. She knows this man. And she knows it, by the wicked waraxe he wields that is tainted with a crimson color. It is unnatural, just looking at that weapon, and the man wielding it.

This man is an inhuman brute, at just over two meters tall–and taller, with the magitech helmet and faint blue visor. Hidden ports on the arms and the chest likely hide weapons. But the bulk of this man, with the suit, is freakish–easily half a metric ton of man and metal, and there is only one person who fits this profile.

“Finally coming out of your hiding hole? Your clients must either love you, or are terrified of you, for you to evade the Valkyries for so long.” This man is one of the most dangerous humans alive.

The slayer of children. The tool of despots and mage criminals across the world.

The butcher of Cape Town. Davos Renshrak.

She grips the handle of Luminari tightly and takes a stance. She's injured, and Edward is badly wounded, too, the Regen potions haven't taken full effect. Even in her dragon form, this foe would present a formidable challenge.

This is one foe she can kill with no hesitation. That man in the mechanized armor grins behind the magitech visor, that feral primeval grin of a man who enjoys the atrocities he commits.

“I would ask who the fuck you are, but given the fact you just laid waste to most of my team, I can hazard a guess. Victor One. We finally meet." He even gives her a mocking bow, that wicked axe gleaming with infernal light, but it's not the only weapon he has. There are ports on his armor for concealed firearms or other dangerous items.

“All of your team, actually.” She tenses and feels the ache of cuts along her legs and her side, still half healed. “Who hired you? Was it Misha? Belmont?”

“Bitch, you're gonna die today, so it means fuck-all who hired me. That little shit next to you is going to die, too.” He rotated his shoulders gently and gave the axe a test swing. “Been a while since I killed a dragon. But I've never killed a Valkyrie. The man who kills a Champion has gotta have some kind of prize pool waiting.”

"You won't live to collect it." She is already injured, and she's exhausted her limited alchemical weapons. "You know what I've done. Who I've fought."

"Put the third Reich in the ground, their whole arcanist division? Yeah, knew that one. Your resume of murder is as high as mine," he says with a lecherous grin. "Plus the Ruskies are still pissed that you guys kept killing all their research projects, and putting craters into their research facilities. Or, the other despots who met sticky ends. Just my luck this string bean is married to you. Fucking intel."

"I would offer you the chance to surrender...but I think the Butcher of Cape Town is enough justification to end your life." Even as she says this, she knows that she's at a disadvantage. "Eddard, run.”

“Not gonna happen.” He racks the pistol slide against his belt with a grimace, a brings up a spell barrier over his body. He's pushing his limits, and she sees the blue lines marking his veins. He's already lightly mana-burned. “I know who you seek. You will never find her.”

Davos grins with that inhuman smile behind the visor. “Ya know, that's what they all say. ‘I'll stop you’. ‘You killed my daddy'. ‘Please let me go, I'll be good, I promise’. Truth is, you never had a chance. At least my dead lackeys managed to soften you up. Didn't think it would take all of them. Ah, well then. Time to earn myself another skull for the wall!”

He came at them with a leap of inhuman strength, axe gleaming from the diagonal swipe aimed at her. She used her kinetics to push her husband out of positioning and also swerved past that deadly blow. She pivoted and swung Luminari against this foe, hoping for a quick disable.

But the blade refused to cut through the armor. It scratched it but did not do any effective damage. She swerved to avoid the riposte and she examined her options. His armor is thick, and he's fast. But so is she. He interweaves swings of his axe with wild haymaker blows, and that armor is too thick for her blade to cut through.

But she can shear it off, as she times a few swings at exposed armor plating, and slices away at smaller segments. This man is no pushover and tries to blast her with a hidden flamethrower that she dodges with agility. His focus is all on her, and ignores the mana-piercing rounds pinging off his armor from Eddard. That sear of heat is a little too close for comfort.

But he leaves himself exposed, and a hit slides into his side. She tears the wound open with a burst of kinetic energy and he grunts--the metal petals outward and so does the injury, but it isn't a gruesome spray of blood. It's a trickle.

Is this the armor, or some twisted biology? She doesn't wait to figure it out and dives past the return strike, coming out of a roll from that flame burst, but it flickers out. He's out of ammo for it.

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Time for a change of pace. She slides past his horizontal swing and charges plasma along her arm, and couples it with her kinetic energy and the blade surges with light. She swings mightily and manages to cut through a chunk of armor on his flank again and he staggers–but only for a brief second.

He moves fast–too fast for any normal human with injuries this massive, and a fist the size of a ham smashes into her armor, instantly disrupting her arcane barrier. The blow sends her skidding along the rocks and mud, and crashing into a rocky outcropping. Her kinetic damper spell barely protected her, and the pain is immense.

He’s on her in an instant, cleaving through the rock–and fortunately–not her with that axe of his, and rock shards ping off of her armor as the vapors of her aether shift wear off–and she lands a rebuttal strike on a leg, shearing through the weaker backside, and a surge of telekinetics throws him off balance.

But this man seems to be immune to pain, and swerves at a speed no human can and barely misses her. She leaps backward with her telekinetics to buy space and, lands in a crouch by Eddard, who is calmly loading his handgun again.

“How’s this man not dead yet? I mean, he’s facing you.”

Davos turns around, leering at them with that haggard grin on his face, hidden behind that semitransparent magietch visor. “Manamachines, son.”

Trisha grabs the handgun and empties the magazine into that helmet–and to no effect. The bullets all bounce off his helmet, even with her persistent aim. “Huh. I guess we tried the ‘but what if we just shoot him’ option.”

“You got a mouth on you, bitch.” Davos shrugs off the assault and charges with the axe, and the thrusters activate on his armor, sending him surging forward in a blaze of blades and fire.

Trisha blasts Eddard to the side and avoids that shearing blade, and she’s feeling the aches and pains of already being banged up. Her endurance feels like it's straining. Fighting a small army had indeed taken a toll on her. But she does have a few risky techniques and channels energy to her weapon.

The blade surges with light and pure plasma energy charges along the length of the edge, and she channels her mana into this one attack while dodging vicious swings. She is pushing herself to her bleeding limits, and feels the edges of her vision darkening. Her reserve strength dribbles away, even as she dodges and blocks that butcher’s chops.

A few near-misses still cut into her armor, and she’s bleeding. She ignores the pain of those strikes sapping at her arm and shoulder. Davos tries to shoulder past her attacks and put his momentum into crushing her. He overcalculates and she gets another parting strike in, shearing through flesh on his flank, and in that split-second of contact, channels enough plasma into the blade to fry him.

But this man is not human. He staggers, rather than dying where he stands, and clenches his gauntlet--a burst of gunfire pings off her armor, even as she's too slow, and she feels a piercing blow hit her arm. A second torrent of plasma cooks the ammo in the magazine, leading to premature discharge and he bellows in pain. He doubles down and hefts the axe with superhuman speed, trying to catch her off-balance.

But she has one last trick. She charges the sword with as much pure mana energy as she can muster, and the blade glows an intense blue. She uses her traversal blink to skip past the axe blow intended to shear her in half. The whistle of that blow was far too close.

She reemerges back from that pure white aether and strikes with every bit of strength she has, energy surging through the blade, and strikes such a blow that the energy pierces a hole through the armor–and him–through his back, and right through his heart. Energy pierces through him, and puts a small crater into the ground. Dirt, and water turn instantly to steam and mud.

That man should be dead with the blade of Luminari straight through his heart, and she pulls out viciously as he slumps, and he puts a gauntleted hand to the hole in his chest. His breathing is ragged, and he just…kneels there.

“Eddard, don’t look.” Trisha lines up the blow that will take this monster’s head off, to give him the swift death that he certainly does not deserve. She charges the blade with kinetic energy.

She is beyond her break point, and struggles to charge the weapon. Her vision is swimming from utter exhaustion–that strike of righteous fury always took a chunk out of her endurance, and this had been too close.

“Trish look out–”

That man should be dead on the ground. Instead, he backswung and caught her full in the chest. The sword clattered into the riverbed and she was sent flying into a boulder. The searing pain of the impact left her reeling. Her helmet had likely saved her from a concussion, and a rib or two were likely broken. She struggled to rise, and saw that man stand up, and turn to face her.

There was no human face behind that visor. There was something else that slithered where a human face should be, and blood dripped from the hole in his armor. A dim glow came from behind the visor as that inhuman thing licked its lips, and jagged teeth gnashed. He grabs his fallen axe with a slow motion, and Eddard is busy firing off every spell he can, trying to stop him. That man ignores her husband and the assault of spells. Then that thing wearing a human face speaks in maddening slithers. Like the words sliding around reality and can’t quite catch on the air.

“Great move, stabbing a man through the heart. Too bad I’ve got no use for one,” that man says while ignoring the feeble assault, and Eddard is dangerously approaching mana burn. She tries to warn him, but the wind's knocked out of her, and her vision is swimming. Davos hefts the axe and is grinning malevolently. Those eyes aren’t human, they’re coal black, and filled with eerie red pupils. What is this horrible monster?!

Eddard dashes over to her, trying to get her to her feet–Davos is taking his time because he doesn’t even bother to change mid-course, and advances step by shaky step. Her husband is screaming at her, trying to get her up, but she’s overspent. She holds her ribs as she gets up, and groans through the pain of those breaks, even with her armor protecting her. Eddard tries to put himself between her and this infernal man, but he flings him with one arm, and he slides into the water, coughing. His veins are blue–he’s badly mana-burned, she has to end this and get him to medical support, before it’s too late!

Davos leers at the injured man, then back to her. She reaches out to Luminari with her kinetic retrieval, but he slams her against the rocks, repeatedly. Her body is battered by this assault, and he grins maniacally behind the visor, still dripping blood. “Damn, you Valkyries are hard to kill! Had to soften you up with my entire team, just to get you moving slow enough to do you in!”

He pins her by the throat with one hand, clenching tightly and she can’t get any air. Starbursts swim in her vision, and she reaches out to grab Luminari. But it’s no use.

“I would savor this moment, but you fucking Valkyries are gonna be a problem. You’re staggeringly unshakeable, unwilling to just let us have this world, and build it in our likeness.” Davos holds that gleaming axe with one hand, smiling from ear to ear, and her vision is darkening in the corners. “Bye-bye, little winged bitch. Gonna send you back to Valhalla, now–”

The deadly blow is stopped millimeters from her face, and Davos furrows his brow. She sees with her wavering vision that Eddard is using a telekinetic spell, and holding that monster at bay. Blue lines trace across his hands and face, and she tries to warn him to run. The words don’t come, and he strains against the burning agony of overusing his mana, holding himself up and trying to keep that deadly axe head from splitting her in half.

Davos' grip slips for just a split second. It’s long enough for her to slip from his grasp, as Eddard’s spell fails and he collapses. She tries to blink to the aether…

…But it’s not fast enough.

The slice of the axe through her left arm leaves her screaming in that brief instance of space. She comes back to reality with Luminari at her feet. She grabs at the severed limb with her hand and hits an emergency injector to seal the wound, blood streaming out. Davos is slow to react, and he leers at her, that inhuman thing slithering from his mouth, and he glances at her, then her own arm, on the ground. He smashes down with an armored boot and crushes the severed limb, and she would be repulsed at the savagery. Pain is her whole existence, but seeing that vile thing defy fate fills her with an overwhelming wrath to end this monster, even if she doesn't survive it.

For Eddard.

For her kids.

He clumsily brings his axe up, intending to finish her, but she fights through the agony, and she grabs Luminari with her free hand, filled with the steadfast will of every fallen Valkyrie before her that wielded the mighty blade.

Lyssa. Katrine. Bellequa. Viviant.

Gaia.

She closes instantly with her aether slip, the blade gleaming with immense light, and the axe blow just misses. She slices vertically and guts the man from his torso to his shoulders, and a spray of blood trickles from the broken armor. Bone, muscle and metal all separate from the deadly edge of the weapon, and render the man like he's been prepped for autopsy.

But he still stands. He staggers backward, gurgling and tossing a one-time-teleportal pad down. She slumps down to her knees, all her energy spent, and she feels death calling for her, the severed limb still dripping slightly. Eddard is on the ground, motionless. Davos collapses onto the platform and disappears in a flash of light. His last moment of escape is futile--he's already dead.

There is no medical help in the world that can save him in time from two wounds that gruesome. Her thoughts become muddled and she crawls to her husband, reaching and gripping his outstretched hand. He looks at her, blue lines etched on his face–burnt into his flesh. He’s barely breathing.

“Trish…don’t die on me…the children need you…”

The world fades out.